Hundreds of guns as well as ammunition, drugs, police dockets and vital forensic documents are believed to have been stolen in a robbery at the Police Forensic Unit at the Eben Donges building in North End.

While police were tight-lipped yesterday on what had been stolen in the robbery, several well-placed police insiders said the storage facility was a “mini arsenal”, holding hundreds of guns and automatic rifles that had all been sent there for ballistic testing.

Other firearms held at the lab include “hundreds” of previously stolen and recovered guns, as well as classified reports and police dockets.

Vital forensic documents used to identify suspects in armed robberies, murders, burglaries and other crimes are also believed to have been stolen during the raid. No other offices in the building were targeted ransacked.

Provincial commissioner Lieutenant-General Mpumelelo Landu said yesterday he had “ordered every policeman in the province to cover every inch of ground to track down these brazen robbers”.